What is Leadership?

Leadership is the process of guiding or leading other individuals, a team or an entire organization. What comes to your mind when you think of a leader? You would probably think about the President or the Prime Minister. Some might think about the principal of their school or college. Others might think about the social worker who teaches underprivileged children. A common factor in all these examples is the impact or influence created by the leader. Therefore, a successful leader is one who can influence others into doing some task. Usually, this influence is a positive one. However, there are several instances of negative leadership too. You will know about them later in this article.

Contents

1. Characteristics of a leader
2. Leaders versus Managers
3. Functions of a leader
4. Theories of leadership
5. Types of leadership

Characteristics of a leader

1. It is an inter-personal process of influence.
2. Leadership is a group process, involving two or more individuals.
3. Good leadership is highly contextual. A good leader usually molds his or her style depending upon the situation.
4. Leadership is a goal-oriented process.
5. It involves the ability to make excellent decisions.

Leaders versus Managers

Leaders and managers have a lot in common. For instance, both leaders and managers work in a goal-oriented fashion. In addition, both need to delegate work and get the best out of people. Does this mean that all managers are leaders? The answer is NO. Not all managers are good leaders. Here are some differences between leaders and managers:

1. Leaders create a vision and work towards making that vision a reality. Managers, on the other hand, work to fulfil the vision of the organization. They do not create a vision for the organization.
2. Leaders have followers, whereas managers have employees working for them. Managers often do not have the potential to influence people to follow their footsteps.
3. Leaders are proactive whereas managers are reactive. In other words, leaders take self-initiated decisions to change for the better. Managers react to external situations and embrace change only when necessary.
4. Leaders have a long-term orientation. They can think about what their organization will look like decades later. Managers, on the other hand, work to fulfill daily targets and goals.

Keep in mind that many managers have the potential to be good leaders. However, not all managers have leadership qualities.

Functions of a leader

1. Representative role: The leader is the representative of the team, organization or nation. They represent their organization in national and international meetings and conferences. When outsiders think about an organization, they are most likely to attribute the characteristics of the leader to the organization.
2. Motivational Role: They need to take action to keep group morale high. Good leaders constantly counsel and motivate their team members to keep their morale high. A very important test of leadership is when the team is going through a bad phase. It is the leader’s responsibility to motivate and guide his or her team. Leaders are responsible for building the self-confidence of their team members.
3. Decision-making role: Important decisions pertaining to the future of the group as well as tasks of the group are taken by the leader. The leader may consult the team members but the leader has the responsibility of taking the final call.
4. Change agent: Leaders are responsible for apprehending future threats to the group and taking proactive actions in advance. They are the initiators of change. Organizational change usually follows a top-down mechanism in which the change is initiated by the top leaders and then percolates down.
5. Belongingness Role: The leader is responsible for cultivating the organizational culture in such a way that employees feel a strong bond with the organization. Employees need to be included and appreciated and this depends largely on how the leader treats them.
6. Reward and coercive role: It is the leader’s responsibility to reward and appreciate followers for desirable behavior and coerce them for unacceptable behaviors.

Theories of leadership

There are numerous theories of leadership. In this section, I have selected a few important ones .

The Great Man Theory

According to this theory, leaders are born with special abilities that help them stand out in a crowd. Leaders lead through charisma. They are born not made. It is called the Great Man theory because it was developed in the military context, where leadership roles were typically held by males. Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler are examples of Great Man theory leaders.

Later, this theory was widely criticized because of its focus on male leaders. In addition, leadership is much more than charisma.

Trait Theory

According to the trait theory, leaders have specific personality traits and characteristics that enable to lead. A few characteristics of a good leaders are:

1. Good cognitive abilities
2. Communication skills
3. Social skills
4. Empathy
5. Physical appearances like height and weight
6. Level of education
7. Occupational skills

This theory was later criticized because it was not able to explain what would happen when the context was volatile and constantly changing. The same traits that enabled a leader to be successful in one context might become his or her weakness in the altered situation.

Situational Theory

In this theory, special attention is given to the context or the situation. Leadership is a function of both the leader’s characteristics (like personality, attitude, image, power) as well as the situational characteristics (like organizational norms, culture and climate). According to this theory, a good leader is one who can adapt his or her leadership style based on the circumstances. Owing to such adaptability, situational leaders are rated as highly effective.

According to this theory, there are four types of leadership style:

1. Telling: The leader tells the followers what to do and how to do it.
2. Selling: The leaders “sell” their ideas to the group. Final decisions are made by group consensus.
3. Participating: Here the leader offers less direction regarding what to do in a situation. Rather, they allow the followers to decide the best course of action.
4. Delegating: In this style, the leader assigns tasks to the followers and the followers hold ultimate responsibility and accountability for the task.

The best suited style depends on the maturity level of the followers and the context.

Behavioral Theory

This theory says that leadership is shown by a person’s acts and not by his or her traits. According to this theory, a leader performs two main functions:

1. Task-oriented: Here the leader gives solutions to work-related problems.
2. Group-maintenance: In this case, the leader displays his people skills and mediated disputes. The leader is also responsible for appreciating and coercing group members.

Types of Leadership

There are several types of leadership prominent in the leadership literature. For the sake of simplicity, I will discuss 7 major types of leaders here.

Authoritative versus Authoritarian

An authoritative leader is one who engages the followers in all aspects of the work. They demand active participation from the employees in all matters pertaining to the task at hand. Since they listen to the followers, they are bale to maximize synergy and reach goals to the fullest. Hence, this is a highly effective style of leadership.

An authoritarian leader is one who forms rules, goals and also spells out how the goals are to be achieved. The followers enjoy absolutely no freedom or participation in decision-making. The followers must obey the dictates of their leader to the word. Such leadership is mostly ineffective because they are not able to tap the resources of the followers.

Transformational versus Transactional Leaders

A transformational leader is one who leads through vision. They are highly team-oriented and ask for the active participation of team members. They also favor taking steps towards radical organizational changes for the growth of the organization.

On the other hand, a transactional leader is one who demands obedience of the followers through reward and punishment. Unlike transformational leaders, they do not have a long-term vision for the organization.

Servant leader

The primary objective of a servant leader is to serve the organization and their followers. They do not act out of self-interest. Rather, they sacrifice their self-interest for the sake of their followers.

Servant leaders are very good listeners. They empathically listen to their followers are show genuine concern for them. In addition, they are humble and never misuse their power for gaining petty advantages. Their first priority is the success and well-being of their followers.

Abusive Leader

As the name suggests, an abusive leader is one who is aggressive, punitive and manipulative. They hardly care about the well-being of the employees. Such leaders constantly pester the followers and bully them when they make mistakes. Such leaders often resort to verbal and non-verbal hostilities in order to get their way.

From a followers’ perspective, such a leadership style is highly exhausting. Imagine your boss complaining all the time and harassing you for no good reason. Abusive leadership has been related to several negative outcomes like intention to quit, absenteeism, exhaustion and reduced productivity.

Laissez-faire Leader

The French term , laissez-faire translates literally to “let them do”. Thus, a laissez-faire leader is one who does not actively monitor the organization. Rather, they let the employees do what they think is best and hope that everything goes well.

They do not challenge the status-quo and hence may prove to be effective in non-volatile and stable times. However, when the outside business world is dynamic, they may not be able to meet the needs of the hour.

Strategic Leader

A strategic leader is one who balances the growth opportunities of the organization and the stability of the organization at the same time. They are usually effective because they do not shun away from change but also know that they should not push too aggressively.

They take care of multiple employees’ needs at the same time. Simultaneously, they also attend to the needs of the organization. They lie at the peril of developing burn out and disappointing employees at the same time.

Bureaucratic Leader

A bureaucratic leader is one who follows rules and regulations laid down by the administration to the words. They follow the books and hardly ever deviate from it. They reject the ideas of the employees out-rightly if they do not match with the company policies. Owing to the lack of innovation and creativity, such a leadership style is rarely effective in a dynamic and volatile environment.

Conclusion

In sum, leadership is a dynamic, inter-personal process of influence. Although it is a position of power, a leader has a lot of responsibilities. Leadership is definitely not an easy task.

Sharing is caring!